


the act of torch bearing

by crikadelic



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: ...2!, Chicago Firefighters (Blaseball Team), Game X, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Team as Family, The Blean, hey remember how the firefighters are a splorts team of first responders, i just think thats neat, includes a joke i only made for twitter user mermeag, post-s10, teen bc i say the fuck word many a times, v short v sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27277654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crikadelic/pseuds/crikadelic
Summary: Season ten is officially over, and Rivers feels like crying.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	the act of torch bearing

Season ten is officially over, and Rivers feels like crying. 

The entire Chicago Firefighters roster is sat around a radio in the Home locker room in the Fire House’s basement level, faces colored with every human emotion and some inhuman ones as well. The commentator’s overjoyed shouting is eventually drowned out by otherworldly static, and the radio abruptly shuts itself off. Somewhere to her left, Socks meows. 

“So… that’s all? Peanut’s dead?” Declan asks. He’s been fiddling with the hem of Tyreek’s jacket since the anonymous radio commentator had all but screamed that they were among the 14 dead players that had materialized on the field after The Shelled One had eliminated the Crabs in one play. Rivers almost feels bad for him.

She sighs aloud and leans back on her palms. The cold tile of the locker room floor serves to ground her amidst the literal hell that had just happened outside somewhere that had universally fucked with weather patterns. “We had better hope so, for your sake if nothing else.” 

Josh nudges her leg with the tip of his boot and gives her a look that says _Not Now, Rosa._ She shrugs. 

For a while that could’ve been anywhere between two and twenty minutes, the team pushes themselves to their feet one by one and moves sluggishly around the room. No one says a word. Everyone seems to be pointedly ignoring the questions that hang in the air like smoke. Lou wordlessly hands Rivers a hair tie. She likes to braid her hair before they go out on jobs, Rivers knows, and tries not to focus on how much her friend’s hands shake. 

When almost everything is said and done, thirteen Firefighters stand in the room, geared up. Justice is still sitting cross-legged in front of the silent radio, a marble monument to the team’s collective fear. Somehow, the look on their face is desperate and frustrated and empty all at the same time. They inhale even though they don’t need to and Rivers feels the tension in the room come to a crescendo. 

“What happens to Tyreek?” 

She feels the lump in her throat catch. Half the team looks to Josh, ever-present and ever-stable, for answers. Lou sniffles behind her. 

Josh squats down next to Justice while everyone else looks on. “I know,” he starts, “What Tyreek meant to you. What he meant to all of us. Right now, we have no contact with the outside world, and we have a job to do. You can stay here if you’d like, but I think we have a better chance of running into them somewhere that isn’t a glorified bunker.”

Justice nods once, slowly, and gathers themselves up. The team, Chicago itself, waits patiently. 

After six terrible minutes of awkward quiet, Justice makes a move as if to stretch shoulder muscles she doesn’t have, and looks directly at Rivers.

“Rivers Rosa, I think now would be an opportune time to say something jokingly condescending so as to raise team morale.” 

Rivers, because she likes and respects Justice, and is quite frankly fucking tired of the energy in the room, obliges. “Dominic Marijuana stood me up by getting murdered and killed god before he got back to me about it. Never make plans with men.” 

Lou snickers and Declan chokes on his spit. 

Fourteen Firefighters pile into three separate engines and take to the streets of Chicago. Unsurprisingly, the city is alight, but there’s an unearthly quality to the flames. The air isn’t tinged with smoke, and when Rivers pulls her respirator off and sticks her head out the passenger side window, it smells nothing like the usual soot and smoke that lingers around after fire-related disasters. Instead, the air smells like the first cold breeze in autumn, the kind of clear and sharp that she associates with being in places that aren’t incredibly disaster-prone. 

She ducks back inside just as the radio in the cab blares to life. The first truck, being driven by Isaac, has turned onto East Randolph, and there is so much shouting that nothing can be discerned from the chatter. Soon enough, the other truck joins in, just as incomprehensible as the first. 

From the driver’s seat, Caleb looks at the radio and then back at her. She sighs again and picks up the handheld. She lets it sit a moment before clearing her throat. 

“Can you people speak one at a time or just stay quiet?” 

A beat passes. The commotion on the other lines dies down almost completely, which means they’ve figured they can just put Lou on and Rivers won’t complain. 

Sure enough, it’s her voice, loud and clear, saying, “The fucking Blean is glowing and Tyreek Olive is standing on top of it.”

With that, chaos re-erupts both over the comms and inside the truck. 

The rest of the ride to Cloud Gate takes a full minute but it feels like forever. The other two trucks are parked haphazardly in front of the weird sculpture and the rest of the team is crowded around one side of it. Tyreek was never a tall person, but no one on the current roster has wings, so it’s really easy to pick him out of the crowd. 

The only two people who aren’t already out of the truck by the time Caleb finishes parking the truck are Rivers and Caleb himself. He reaches over and flicks her left knuckle as if to say _We're Alright,_ and slides out of the driver’s seat. Rivers follows. 

They join their team. The night air is cool against her face and she’s thankful for it. She knows how quickly the heat becomes overwhelming, and tonight would be the worst for that. 

The circle around Tyreek breaks almost unconsciously to let her and Caleb in. Tyreek’s the same height as they were when they died, but their presence feels bigger. The six wings help with that, definitely, but Rivers can’t help but feel like her old friend has been deified, made a god by the ones that took him. The blindfold is still wrapped firmly around his eyes, but that doesn’t stop his gaze from feeling like a physical weight when it falls on her. 

“Rosa,” he greets, tone serene. 

“Olive,” she replies. 

Tyreek’s smile cracks into a huge grin and she cannot help but hug him. She’s missed them more than words can possibly convey, and having them here and solid again feels both terrifying and organic. The tears that have been threatening to fall since hearing their name shouted over the radio finally come as she buries her face in his shoulder. 

“You been taking good care of the team?” 

She chokes out a teary laugh. “You know I have not.” 

“‘Atta girl.”

When she draws back, he squeezes her shoulders. She is able to step out of the way in time to avoid being tackled by Caleb, who Tyreek hugs bodily. While they mutter to each other about swords, probably, Rivers finds her place in the line next to Lou. 

“Too bad death didn’t make him any taller,” Lou says, leaning into her space. Rivers can tell from her voice alone that she’s crying, so she slips her hand out of the pocket of her jacket and holds it in the space between them. 

Lou takes it just as Rivers says, “I think that becoming taller because of godly intervention would be cheating and therefore cannot be counted on the measurement chart.”

Lou laughs, clear in the night, and Caleb steps back into the line with the rest of the team. Tyreek stands with their hands on their hips and grins at the group, then frowns. 

“Why is Declan Suzanne wearing my jacket and when did we get a cat?” 

Fifteen firefighters sit in a crowded circle in front of a shiny bean sculpture. The winds coming off the lake cool the night air, and the city seems to breathe. For tonight, Chicago has gotten its torch back.

**Author's Note:**

> i havent written in 18 years also shoutout to waalkr (https://twitter.com/_waalkr) who gassed me up in my dms. no i dont know how to insert links no im not gonna look it up. come hit me up on twitter to watch me simp for rivers rosa https://twitter.com/crikadelic


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